Can you imagine how I felt looking at Caillebotte’s Paris with a Starbucks on every corner? Vincent, alone and drunk at a Starbucks?

My New York friend tells me of a corner in New York where she can
see 4 Starbucks from a single street corner.

Did you know the Dutch bought
Manhattan Island for a pound of Starbucks coffee? And the grateful city forefathers
gave the chain a 100 year non-compete agreement just like Brits got in
Hong Kong?

Many years earlier Starbucks got its start when a grateful Alfred Peet,
(recent immigrant from Amsterdam, and founder of Peet’s coffee)
was rescused by a buxom mermaid after being swept out to sea while surfing under the
Golden Gate bridge. Brought back ashore in Seattle, he immediately realized
that Seattle needed yet another coffee shop (YACS), and opened a new Peet’s
coffee. But all was not well, the Seattle Peet’s renamed itself Starbucks,
removed the nipples from the mermaid sign, and set out to conqueror the world
selling pre-packaged sophistication. Sadly Peet’s is now trying playing catchup
as Starbucks darker, grittier twin: darker roasts, dark brown instead of green,
and no overstuffed chairs.

via Aaron, who takes a probably deserved shot at
Boston’s anemic cafe scene, but fails to acknowledge the few stand outs:

Davis Square’s Diesel which tries to be uncomfortably hippier then thou, but is
simply too pleasant and comfortable to pull it off (anyone know a better url?)

and The Other Side, which is as far from Aramani as
you can get, and still be on Newbury St., and probably the only place outside of
Amherst, MA where you can get real, honest to god Rao’s coffee (though
irregularily as befits such a local)

We lost Liberty, and the much lamented
Curious Liquids, and Someday (url doesn’t work anymore, a bad sign) was teetering on the brink when I was last in the
city, but do not be tricked into thinking your only choices are Tealuxe, or
Dunkin Donuts.